The Domino Effect
by Asphodel to Wormwood
Summary: Sometimes all it takes is one little thing before everything crashes down around your head.
1. Chapter 1

"How've you been eating lately, Mr. Vantas?"

The young man with light brown hair scowled at the therapist across from him. "If you're asking if I can keep anything down, the answer is still no."

"I don't think you need me to tell you your family's worried about you."

"Doesn't take much to worry some of them."

"Your brother does have a reason to worry. He tells me that you fainted at school once because of malnourishment."

The young man rolled his eyes. "That was an accident, 'sides, I apparently deserved it."

"Would you care to talk about it?"

"You're gonna need more than that notebook."

The therapist smiled softly, casually plucking a fresh legal pad from their desk. "Start at the beginning."

* * *

His name is Karkat Vantas and he is so done right now. There is a long list of reasons his doneness level is steadily approaching an all time high, including but not limited to: that time Porrim and Kanaya decided that he and his older brother would make the greatest dress up dolls, the mere existence of said brother, the fact he is currently being used as a pack mule, the existence of implied extended family, the morons across the street, the continued existence of aforementioned brother, the asshole from across the street that hits on the annoying brother who doesn't realize what's going on half the time, the idea of existence in general, and the asshole who decided to call him right in the middle of carrying an over sized box down a set of stairs. Goddamn fuckasses.

"KK, ith everything ok?"

"Everything's just fine and fucking dandy. I'm only hauling around Porrim's shit because Dolores won't let me do anything unless I help her."

"Ithn't Porrim the one who thays the dothn't need a man'th help?"

"She has a lot of shit Captor."

"That'th bethideth the-"

"Point? Yeah, listen Captain Lisp, I gotta go. Kankri's been following me for the last hour waiting for me to stop lugging around Porrim's shit so he can tell me something I don't really care about anyway without 'triggering' me."

"KK wait!"

_Click._

_I am surrounded by idiots._ Karkat sighed to himself setting down the final box in Porrim's car-thing.

"Karkat, now that you are not doing anything there are several things I wish to bring to your attention."

Karkat, however, wasn't paying attention to his older brother's ramblings, he was too busy eying the moving van across the street. "Since when did anyone live there?" He interrupted the obviously well outlined in advance essay.

"If you actually listened while I spoke, the fact that you do not is highly triggering to me, you would have noted that I had mentioned the fact several times."

The younger boy watched another guy around his age clamber from the truck. Another guy, his brother perhaps?- removed himself from the driver's seat and slung his arm around the younger looking one.

"I ran into the older one yesterday at the coffee shop-" Kankri continued.

"Don't you normally consider coffee triggering?"

"That's-"

"Besides the point? Is that the only fucking thing people can say today? First Dolores, then Sollux and now you."

"Kindly cease interrupting me. Anyway, the elder one's name is Cronus and that's his little brother Eridan, I believe his name is. Their father died a few years back, well that's what Cronus likes to say, but I get the feeling that he's lying about, and Cronus has been taking care of Eridan all this time, though this will be the sixth, I think was, school Eridan's been to since beginning high school."

"I thought that gossip is also triggering."

"Karkat, that is so far beyond the point its not even within the atmosphere. I do hope you'll try to make friends with Eridan, from the way Cronus spoke yesterday, the poor boy needs one."

Karkat grumbled to himself for a moment before responding. "Kankri."

"Yes Karkat, have you considered this proposition."

_There was no proposition in all of that. _

"Shut the fuck up."


	2. Chapter 2

Despite the fact he really didn't want to walk across the street to meet the neighbors yesterday, Karkat was still physically drug across the street by his brother who apologized the entire way. Somehow, in the time between Karkat absconded and Kankri returned home lunch plans were made and now Karkat had to attend lunch with the tool across the street and his little brother, who was probably some irritating thirteen year old. The pair was now Kankri's favorite topic to lect- ess- THING TO TALK ABOUT. And thus, hours before Karkat would ever be awake on a Saturday, Kankri drug his ass out of bed.

"How many times do I have to fucking tell you until it gets through your abnormally thick skull into your social justice addled brain that I don't fucking want to go to lunch with them!" Karkat shouted.

"I fear your argument is invalid for I have already spoken with Cronus and have been assured that I am not over stepping my boundaries in any way by inviting you along to meet his younger brother."

"I don't want to go," Karkat complained burying his face in his pillow.

"There is no way to say this without potentially triggering you, but I suppose that this is simply, as people say, an example of the saying 'what goes around, comes around.' As often as you have triggered me, I am surprised that an opportunity took so long to present itself."

Karkat grumbled a bit, scrounging around his floor with one hand for a pair of pants, head still beneath the pillow.

"Furthermore, er- Karkat you are not actually contemplating going out looking like that, right?"

Karkat glanced down at his freshly donned jeans and the shirt with the red slash across the chest he'd slept in. His nose crinkled, "So says the fully grown man whose sweater depicts a cat chasing a butterfly. Wouldn't that be triggering to dog lovers?"

The young man frowned at his little brother, "I happen to like felines, Karkat; after all I am a caretaker for one."

"Since when?" Karkat asked incredulously.

"If you had listened to me at all when I returned home last night, you would have been aware not only of our plans for lunch, but also Mr. Flufferton's existence."

"Mr. What?"

A quiet meow was heard from the doorway. Karkat looked away from his brother to the source of the sound to see a fluffy brown ball of fur. Kankri turned and took a couple steps and scooped it up. Upon further observation the ball of fur was missing an eye, a leg and part of its tail. Karkat watched as his brother cuddled the tiny thing into his chest, cooing at it. For a brief moment, Karkat entertained the idea he had finally lost his mind, well, it was either that or Armageddon was on their doorstep.

The moment ended when the fluff ball licked Kankri's nose and started to purr, then sneezed cutely. To his surprise, his brother did start off on a lecture at the kitten, instead he mumbled an "Excuse you," to the kitten and planted a tiny kiss on its nose. Karkat's indecision was over, clearly the end was nigh.

Caught up in the kitten, neither young man noticed the arrival of one of their 'cousins.' "Are you seriously going to lunch in that sweater?"

"Porrim, kindly keep your unkind words to yourself," Kankri replied, leaving the room, still cooing at Mr. Flufferton.

Karkat turned his attention to one of his fashionably dressed, the real question was when weren't they fashionably dressed, 'cousins.'

* * *

"Mr. Vantas," Karkat glanced down from the ceiling he was staring down, "you've never spoken of why you persist with using air quotation marks every time you refer to either Porrim or Kanaya."

"That's a story for another time, Lalonde. As I was saying…"

* * *

"When did Dolores decide letting Kankri keep a fucking cat a good idea?"

"Hell if I know, she lets him keep that abomination of a sweater too."

Karkat finally stood after hearing a loud knock. He pushed his face up against the window and looked down at the doorstep, ignoring his 'cousin's' jibes at his apparent feline tendencies. "What a fucking tool," Karkat muttered. He'd only met the elder douche bag across the street after dinner, which was when Kankri had determined it to be the least triggering time to go meet them. He was wrong; the moron currently on Karkat's doorstep had answered the door shirtless, sending Kankri into a stammering mess. At that point the younger Ampora was apparently away and Karkat hadn't seen any reason to stay for much longer, but that's a tale for another day.

Karkat pushed away from the window and shoved past Porrim to storm downstairs. His brother was leaning against the doorway, slightly pink, kitten still in his arms, conversing with the tool on the doorstep. Karkat scooped up his shoes and without putting them on, grabbed his brother's arm and drug him outside, slamming the door behind them. He released his brother next to the lost in time moron, seriously, who slicks their hair back like that anymore? Quicker than nearly anything he was clambering over the front seats of this vint- no, this clunker deserves not the title of vintage.

"W-well, good mornin' you too sunshine."

Karkat glanced over at the bespectacled boy next to him, "Who the fuck are you," he asks not masking his irritation even a little bit.

"Evven though, I really should be the one asking that," did he seriously just replace a v with a w? "My name's Eridan, sorry I w-wasn't there to meet you yesterday."

* * *

**Hey there, author here! Just a quick Happy Thanksgiving to all you Americans and a request for you all to please review! It would seriously make my day!  
**


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